I made my money back with a little left over, and the spike in the Amazon rating added much value to the promo. Salem’s Daughters soared to about 3,500 and almost hit number one in the Witches and Wizards sub-genre with a sustained top 10,000 ranking for a week. Note: You can only promote a particular book once every three months with BookSends, although you can use them once a month for other books.

This was the most expensive promo and I made half the cost back. Combining this with the first two, I broke even. The Amazon rating was boosted but not as much.

What Bothered Me was I paid extra to be Book of the Day and all that got me was a black border around my cover image and Salem’s Daughters was listed last among the other books being promoted that day.

I’ve never heard of them either. I saw reviews where writers used their $5.00 program for a free download promo and were very much satisfied with their results. So I tried it with my paid promo. They offered additional exposure for a few dollars here and there and with PayPal fees I was up to $21.25. I saw a small bump in downloads and that’s all.

However if you let BKnights know you found Fiverr on KBoards, they will run all five gigs for you for only $5.00. I didn’t know it at the time. Now that I know, for $5.00 I’ll try them again.

It was cheap so I tried it. They do have a free service, the $10.00 was an upgrade for additional exposure. I didn’t see much in sales.

I was rejected by Book Bub. No surprise there, but if they had accepted me I would have paid for the promo ($520.00). Also, eReader News (ENT) Book of the Day ($25.00 for my genre) and Read Free.ly (free) never responded to my submissions and follow up emails to use them. I’ve followed books promoted on these sites and have seen great results and will submit to them again soon.

I didn’t use Book Gorilla as I followed Amazon rankings of the books they promoted and I did not see enough of a spike in rankings (sales) to justify the cost of $50.00.

Overall I lost money but nothing I can’t handle. About $25.00 I’m not afraid to try something. And I got hundreds of my books out to new readers.

Moving Forward I will again submit to the ones that work: Book Goodies, GoodSends, eReader Café, eReader News, Read Free.ly and miscellaneous freebies together on one day and price my books at $0.99. I’ll go all out for that one awesome Amazon ranking. I hope to get it all the way up into the hundreds.

Then, I’ll follow up with the same promo later and price my books at $1.99. I might not see the same spike in Amazon ratings, but I’ll make $1.40 per sale rather than $0.33 pricing it at $0.99.

Reviews Why didn’t I think of this earlier? I’ve just added this to the end of my four books: Thank you for reading Salem’s Daughters. I greatly appreciate it.

If you liked the story, please consider posting a short review at Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews are the greatest compliment a writer can receive. And thanks again for reading Salem’s Daughters. I hope you enjoyed it.

Last Salem’s Daughters Blog Tour Stop What better place to end an exhausting blog tour that at Carol Kilgore’s Tiki Huton Monday. Stop by and say hello. Mai Tais are on me.

Question of the Month Brought to you by Michael D’Agostino at A Life Examined. Which one social convention would you get rid of?

Shaking Hands. I’m a guy and I know what guys do with their hands. Scratching every part of their body, sneezing and coughing into them, running fingers through their hair, handling money, not washing them after using the bathroom (I do but many don’t) touching door knobs that hundreds of other guy hands have gripped.

Nope, I don’t shake hands. I give a fist pump and don’t care if I offend people by it.

Question Have you ever paid for a promo like this or are you now considering one?